The Brittleness of Islam

The Brittleness of Islam October 13, 2011

Westerners spend a lot of time fretting about the strength of Islam.  I’m not so sure:

Islamic authorities will provide counseling to a dozen Malaysian  Muslims to “restore their belief and faith” after they attended a  community dinner at a church hall, a royal sultan said Monday.

The case has triggered worries among officials in  Muslim-majority Malaysia that some non-Muslims were trying to convert  Muslims. Proselytizing of Muslims is punishable by prison terms of  various lengths in most Malaysian states.

Sorry, but behavior like that is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of profound weakness and brittleness. I mean, come on! Lunch with a few Methodists requires some hysterical intervention? Talk about not ready for adulthood or civilization! I believe that such a brittle culture will not, in the end, be able to survive a real encounter with the gospel. I doubt, in fact, that it can even survive an encounter with Western secular consumer culture. If Christian culture, with all its spiritual resources to draw on, is in a struggle here, how much more with the barren and dessicated thing that is this brittle and fragile Islam be in crisis? Indeed, much of the violence of Islam is precisely due to its interior fragility.


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